


As Each Other

by kenzz_95



Series: Trektober 2020 [25]
Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Bodyswap, Friends to Lovers, Getting Together, Handwavey scifi stuff, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-26
Updated: 2020-10-26
Packaged: 2021-03-09 03:08:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,578
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27196927
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kenzz_95/pseuds/kenzz_95
Summary: After a freak accident, Jim wakes up in his best friend's body. This would have been odd for anyone, but switching bodies with the man you were secretly in love with had its own set of challenges.
Relationships: James T. Kirk/Leonard "Bones" McCoy
Series: Trektober 2020 [25]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1948633
Comments: 11
Kudos: 96
Collections: Trektober 2020





	As Each Other

**Author's Note:**

> Trektober Day 26: Bodyswap
> 
> These always mess with my brain a little bit, but I had fun writing this. Hope you enjoy!

Jim Kirk was lying on the floor. Why was he lying on the floor? The details felt fuzzy. To be honest,  _ everything _ felt fuzzy. His head hurt, and his whole body felt not unlike he had been turned inside out and put back the right way again - that had happened once, so he knew what it felt like. Unpleasant. He opened his eyes slowly, blinking up at the dark ceiling above his head, and the details started coming back to him. They had been sent by Starfleet to investigate a research posting that had gone dark for too long and there they had found everyone dead, or at least that’s what they first thought. They had split into groups to try to find out what happened, Jim had gone off with Bones, and in one of the labs they had found a man who had clearly been unhinged for quite some time, but was still alive. The scientist heading the facility had apparently become hell-bent on trying to cheat death, which was so stereotypical mad scientist that Jim nearly laughed. Bones actually did laugh, despite having had a bit of a mad scientist moment himself and figuring out how to cheat death only a year and a half prior. But that was highly classified. Apparently the man didn’t appreciate having his extremely unethical life’s work mocked because he had stunned the pair of officers, turned on his machine, and started ranting about how he would show them. Fortunately, Jim had managed to get ahold of his own phaser while their wannabe captor still thought they were both passed out and had stunned him much harder. But just as Bones had been declaring that, despite the phaser being set to stun, the scientist had not survived, the machine went off with a bang and a flash. And then...he was lying on the floor.

“Bones,” Jim moaned, his voice sounding strange to his ears. He had to make sure his friend was okay. He was going to try to sit up and look around, at least until he heard himself say,

“Okay, what the fuck?”

But he hadn’t say anything. He sat up quickly in the confusion, perhaps too quickly what with the way his vision blacked out a little around the edges, and then found himself face to face with...himself.

He just stared at himself for a few long moments. Sure, he had heard of out of body experiences before, but this was something else. Then he looked down at himself. The himself that felt like himself. He was wearing a blue shirt with lieutenant commander stripes. A ring on his pinky. A science division badge on his chest. He let his hands roam briefly over his body, feeling broader shoulders, slightly less intimidating brows, and,

“Oh my God, Bones, I think I’m you.”

In terms of weird things that had happened in the life of one James T Kirk, getting body swapped with his best friend was...well, it may not be the definitive weirdest, but it was definitely up there. Spock had found them shortly after the realization was made, and he had listened while his voice and his body made quick work of explaining to Spock everything they knew about the situation, which wasn’t much, but it  _ was  _ filled with Bones-isms and dammit those just sounded strange in Jim’s voice. The machine had shorted out, so they were going to get Scotty down here to see if he could make sense of it and hopefully fix this problem but in the meantime Spock strongly suggested that both the captain and the doctor return to the ship. Neither of them put up much of a fight.

The two men didn’t speak much as they made their way to medbay from the transporter room. It was odd, Jim thought, watching himself walk down the halls of the ship with a rather Bones expression on his face. And his body - or rather, Bones’ body - felt weird, too. Everything felt slightly off, like he was watching an old film where they for some reason couldn’t get the audio and video to sync up. 

Bones led them through medbay and into his office, closing the door behind them. He then proceeded to do some scans on both of them.

“Well,” Bones concluded, “We both still seem to be in perfect health.”   


“You mean aside from the fact that we’re each other,” Jim said. That seemed like a pretty important caveat. 

“Obviously,” Bones drawled, although it didn’t quite have the same effect without the hint of an accent he usually had. But, speaking of accents…

“You are  _ way _ more southern than you usually let on,” Jim observed, in Bones’ voice that sounded more like Bones’ voice when he was really tired, really drunk, or both. Jim had to wonder why that was. He really liked Bones’ accent.

“Well your ankle hurts. Why does your ankle hurt?” Bones countered.

“Tripped over something in my quarters this morning, it’s not a big deal,” Jim said, waving his hand dismissively. This, he realized, was going to get really weird. 

Bones pinched the bridge of his nose between his fingers and sighed, “Dammit, this would happen. How long do ya think it’ll take Scotty to get that thing fixed again?”

“Him and Spock are working on it, I’m sure they’ll figure something out,” Jim said, which wasn’t an answer and he knew it. The thing was, he was pretty damn good at reading Spock’s barely there vocal inflections, and it had sounded a whole lot like maybe this wasn’t going to be such an easy fix.

“Great, thank you for that detailed timeline, Jim. This is all giving me a headache. I’m gonna go lie down. Let me know when you hear from Spock or Scotty. And don’t forget, I’m allergic to strawberries.”

“Okay, well, don’t forget I’m allergic to…”

Bones cut him off with a laugh, “I know your allergies better than you do and we don’t have time to list them all out. I’ve got it. Also, word of advice, if you sleep on your back you’re going to wake up sore.”

Jim tried to think of anything he would include in a hypothetical “how to live in the body of Jim Kirk” manual that he should tell Bones, but he couldn’t think of anything at the moment. There was, though, one last thing…

“Do we need to have, like, boundaries to this? Do you want me to shower with my eyes closed or something?”

Bones sighed and shook his head, “I don’t much see the point of any of that. Go crazy, do whatever you want. Just don’t get me any injuries or weird diseases and we’re good.”

That level of trust frankly bowled Jim over. He knew Bones trusted him fully, completely, and without hesitation, but this just somehow felt different. No real warnings or stipulations, no “don’t look here” or “don’t touch there”, there was just trust that Jim would treat Bones the way that he would want Bones to treat his body. So that, Jim decided, was what he was going to do.

Jim awoke to bad news, which was becoming a bit of an unfortunate habit lately. He had intended to just lay down for a minute but had crashed hard and fast, napping for three hours before he was awoken by a hail from Scotty and Spock. He met the two men, in addition to Bones, in one of the conference rooms, where Scotty gave the bad news: the machine that had done this to them was shot. No question about it, it was shot. Scotty was a brilliant engineer, best in the ‘fleet, and he claimed he could probably fix it with time but just some of the parts alone would take at least a month to requisition. Bones had interrupted, demanding in Jim’s voice but his own angry tone, that this was their lives they were talking about, not some minor inconvenience, and it was worth the wait. Jim was inclined to agree, at least until Spock mentioned that they had gone through the scientist’s logs and found that in all his experiments people’s consciousness inevitably returned to their own bodies at any point between 5 and 12 days. Basically, by the time they even got the parts to fix the thing the problem would be long taken care of anyways. Therefore, Spock suggested, it would be prudent to leave this place and continue on their mission, as they had just received a distress call from a nearby system. Bones had looked like he wanted to argue, but thought better of it. This just made the most sense and they all knew it.

So they had made an announcement over the shipwide comms system that the captain and CMO had briefly switched bodies so they should not be concerned to see Bones in the captain’s chair or Jim running medbay. The crew had heard weirder things, so everyone seemed to take it in stride. They both requisitioned new uniform tops, because Bones was broader in the shoulders than Jim was and these new uniforms were pretty fitted - they were better looking than the so-named Pajama Uniforms they had in years prior, but less comfortable - and then they both returned to the respective quarters for a good night’s sleep before alpha shift tomorrow. Doctor’s orders. 

When this had first happened, when he had first silently agreed that he was going to not be weird about his best friend’s body despite Bone’s lack of concern over boundaries, Jim had been worried it would be difficult. It was easier than he thought. He had been fantasizing about getting Bones naked for, well, years at this point. So when he stripped out of his uniform for a shower that first evening, he let his eyes roam casually over the body he was occupying, then simply shrugged and got in the shower. It wasn’t like seeing Bones naked was a let down. Far from it, in fact. But, he mused as he showered, seeing Bones naked wasn’t the same as seeing  _ Bones _ naked. Okay, that didn’t even make sense to him. He supposed the appeal of it all, of all his carefully constructed and equally carefully hidden fantasies, was that behind those hazel eyes was  _ Bones _ . When he was touched,  _ Bones _ would feel it. Without Bones in it, well...it wasn’t the same relationship Jim had with his own body. There was a sense of curiosity and attraction there, whereas his body was simply a part of himself, something he didn’t think about much. But without Bones, it was just another hot body. Not something that would be extremely difficult to just not touch and leave alone for a week, or however long this lasted. He did have to wonder, though, what Bones was doing right now. It wasn’t the same, he knew Bones didn’t feel the same way that he did, the other man probably hadn’t even bothered  _ looking _ because he probably didn’t care, but then there was the thought of what if he had.

Jim only indulged those thoughts for a few moments before he shook his head and snapped to himself,

“Pull yourself together, Kirk.”

It was something Bones would’ve said, maybe, and it came out in Bones’ voice, and Jim was once again struck by how odd this situation was. He shut off the shower, wrapped a towel around his hips, pulled the dark and wet hair out of his face, and looked at himself in the mirror.

“Kid, I swear to God the next time you break a bone doing something stupid and reckless I’ll skip the regen and make you deal with it as it heals on its own.”

Jim laughed, and it was Bones’ laugh which was weird and funny at the same time.

“Jim, if that goddamn Vulcan tries to boss me around in my own fucking medbay again…”   


“Having our bodies taken apart atom by atom and being shot across space just ain’t right, Jim.”

Impersonating Bones was oddly entertaining, even though he knew the other man would kill him if he was here. But Jim stopped laughing when he suddenly had an idea that, if he had thought about it for two seconds, he probably would’ve realized wasn’t the best one.

“Jim, I’ve been in love with you for years and when I bitch at you it’s really ‘cause I don’t know what I’d do without you.”

“I love you, Jim, and I know you feel the same way. You’re the best friend I’ve ever had, but I think we’d be even better as boyfriends.”

“When medbay is quiet I fantasize about pulling a privacy screen around a biobed and fuckin’ you until…” Jim cut himself off at that thought and shook his head, “Dammit, Jim, you’re being creepy. You promised yourself you wouldn’t be weird about this.”

Jim leaned against the sink and sighed heavily. 

“Shit,” Jim cursed quietly, giving up on trying to get Bones’ voice to match Bones’ tone and speech patterns, “This is not my day.”

As it turns out, the next day wasn’t Jim’s day either. When his alarm woke him up for alpha shift, he was hard and it took him a couple moments to realize that, oh yeah, he was in Bones’ body and that was Bones’ dick he had just wrapped his hand around and this was the exact thing he had sworn he wasn’t going to do. So he groaned and opted to take a cold shower instead. He hoped this wasn’t going to become a pattern because he was going to run out of water credits real soon if every morning began like this.

He thought that maybe he could distract himself with work, but things didn’t get any easier when he got to the bridge. There was a tension in the air as he sat down in his chair, and he caught Sulu and Chekov exchanging a look. Jim didn’t blame them. Sure, everyone knew in theory what had happened, but Spock was the only one on the bridge at the moment who had actually seen him or Bones since the switch. He could understand why seeing Dr. McCoy in a command gold shirt with captain’s stripes walking onto the bridge and sitting in the captain’s chair would be a jarring sight. And then it seemed like the bridge crew was running on a slight delay all day, which Jim found intensely irritating. He had a lot of pride in how smoothly his command crew worked together, but now it seemed like there was a several second buffer every time he said anything where the crew had to consciously remember that oh yeah, there was a reason why it looked and sounded like their CMO was on the bridge making command decisions. Jim was just glad that it was a slow day. That kind of delay could get people killed in a crisis situation. He decided not to mention it. They all knew.

Jim often let his shift on alpha bleed into beta, but not that day. He retreated into his ready room at the earliest opportunity and spent a good deal of beta staring at various forms on his PADD that he knew he had to work on but couldn’t bring himself to start. Finally he made his way back to his quarters, collapsed on his couch, and groaned. Bones hadn’t been kidding when he warned Jim against sleeping on his back.

Shortly after he arrived in his quarters, Bones walked in. It was a bit unusual, because usually Bones at least buzzed the door once before entering the code and just walking in. But apparently not that evening.

“Hey,” Jim protested weakly, setting down his third cup of coffee of the day. Bones really did have a caffeine problem, he kept getting headaches if he went too long without a cup. 

“Oh, please, what’s the worst that could happen, I would see you naked? Newsflash, but that ain’t exactly a novel experience,” Bones pointed out as he slumped into the couch next to Jim. Seeing Bones’ movements and speech patterns come out of Jim’s body was still so jarring. No wonder the bridge crew had a difficult time with it.

“You lecture me on having horrible eating habits but man you are completely addicted to caffeine,” Jim pointed out, “Maybe I’ll break that for you.”

“You’re lactose intolerant and never told me,” Bones countered. This was news to Jim, actually.

“I...really? Ya know, that does actually explain a bit.”

“Jesus Christ,” Bones buried his face in his palms, but he was laughing, “Did you really not know? Took me four meals to figure something out that you’ve probably had for years. There’s a hypo for that, you know.”

“Oh, good, more shots,” Jim drawled and Bones rolled his eyes,

“It ain’t that big of a deal. A good portion of the crew gets ‘em. They’re just once a month, you can ask Sulu about them.”

Jim sighed and so did Bones, who also picked up Jim’s coffee cup and took a long drink.

“This is making me goddamn insane,” Bones complained, putting the cup down on Jim’s coffee table with a little too much force.

“You’re telling me,” Jim agreed, “I feel like all this is fucking up the bridge. That seamless quality just wasn’t there all day, every single time I said anything there was a buffer. It was so frustrating and I can’t even blame them because this is fucking with my head too!”

“I feel like I can’t even  _ do _ my job.” Bones was wearing a very typical “Bones is frustrated” expression that Jim was certain he had never made before. He didn’t know his face could do that, actually. “There’s so much muscle memory involved, in surgery especially, and that extra time can be vital. If it’s alright with you, I think M’Benga should be acting CMO until this all sorts itself out.”

“Do whatever you think you need to,” Jim nodded, then tilted his head to rest it on Bones’ shoulder. The angle was slightly different than he was used to, but the effect was the same, especially when Bones wrapped an arm around him and squeezed him on the shoulder.

“And we gotta do 4 to 11 more days of this bullshit,” Bones complained, “And that’s only if we’re a typical case. Could be much worse.”

Usually Jim would try to correct Bones’ pessimism, but he wasn’t in the mood that evening. For now, maybe it was best that neither of them talk at all, and that they just be together. With their eyes closed, so maybe they could forget.

On the second day, Jim decided he was going to kick Bones’ caffeine addiction. On the third day, after having a headache half the day, he gave up on that. On the fourth day Bones realized that he had Jim’s biometric signature which meant he could get into Spock’s office and he covered the entire underside of their first officer’s desk in this bizarre and sticky yet harmless slime from the bio labs. Jim had to pretend he didn’t find it hilarious, and was also going to have to pretend he didn’t notice when Spock inevitably got Bones back, despite the apparent illogical nature of pranks. On the fifth day, Jim ran out of water credits for the fortnight. On the sixth day, he had really hoped to wake up in his own body again but apparently nothing was ever that easy. On the seventh day, they ran into a problem.

There was a religious outpost on some random ass planet that was considered sacred to a people who primarily resided just outside of Federation space. The species had no desire to be a part of the Federation or any other group, and the Federation had allowed that planet to remain in their jurisdiction despite it being surrounded on all sides by Federation space. The Enterprise was responding to calls that a Klingon ship was harassing the religious outpost on the neutral planet and was demanding the populace, a very strictly peaceful people, give them supplies. The Enterprise had been tasked with getting the Klingons to leave so these people could live in the isolation they wanted.

Klingons were notoriously tricky, and a situation with them could turn into a firefight in a second. The fact that the Klingon ship answered their hails was a good sign. Jim had been having Spock answer hails for the past few days, after a really awkward and complicated interaction with another Starfleet vessel wherein they had no other choice but to explain the whole stupid situation to a captain who laughed his ass off the whole time. Jim was glad for that administrative decision, though, when he recognized the Klingon commander that appeared on their view screen. The good news was that, for a Klingon, the man was known to be fairly reasonable. Jim had successfully navigated a situation with him in the past, and nobody had gotten stabbed or shot so it had worked out pretty well in Jim’s opinion. The bad news was that apparently the Klingon commander  _ also _ thought Jim had been fairly reasonable for a human - he wasn’t sure if he should be insulted or complimented by that - and refused to talk to anyone other than Captain Kirk, even when Spock told him that the captain wasn’t feeling well but he was fully authorized to deal with the situation himself.

Spock muted their end of the channel and turned to Jim, who was standing just off screen,

“I believe we have no other choice but to get Dr. McCoy.”

“Oh, he’s going to love this,” Jim mumbled, “I’ll go get him myself, he’ll be filled in by the time we get back. Figure out how to stall this guy for a while.”

“Although I fail to see another option, I do have concerns about the doctor’s diplomatic experience or lack thereof,” Spock said, altogether unhelpfully. Jim was already stepping into the turbolift,

“Like you said, Spock, we don’t have any other options. I’ll be back in a few minutes.”

“You want me to do  _ what _ ?” Bones asked as they walked back to the turbolift from medbay, “Dammit, Jim, I’m a doctor not a diplomat. You really think I’m gonna be able to convince these Klingons to both leave this planet alone and not shoot at us in the process?”

“The good thing is that if you don’t try then there’s no way in hell they’ll leave, peacefully or otherwise, so it’ll be hard for you to make the situation worse. And this commander is only looking for a fight about 85% of the time. For a Klingon, that practically makes him a pacifist!”

“Wow, I’m sure he’s a true saint. Doesn’t change the fact that I don’t have a lick of real world diplomatic experience.”

“That’s not necessarily true,” Jim argued, stopping just outside the turbolift doors, “You deal with sticky situations in medbay all the time. What about that time you convinced those two aliens to allow you to treat their sick daughter even though apparently medicine went against their religion or something?”   


“That’s different,” Bones argued, “The entire ship could be at risk if I make the wrong move here.”

“I think you’ll actually do well with Klingons. Their entire society is based on honor, and they don’t think humans have any. If you accidentally call this guy an ugly motherfucker, he’ll probably just be impressed you had the balls to say it. Be strong, dig in your heels, don’t hold back on the stubborn, don’t let him insult you without giving something equal back. You’ll be fine. I believe in you, Bones. You can do this.”

Bones took a deep breath and finally pushed the call button for the lift. 

“I’m retiring to the goddamn Carribean after this,” Bones grumbled.

“35 is way too young to retire,” Jim pointed out, “Now come on, trade me shirts and let's get this over with.”

It was a damn good thing that Bones’ default way to cover up his anxiety was to be bitchy and stubborn, because if you didn’t know the man there was no way you could tell that Bones actually was about to throw up from nerves the entire negotiation. At first, Jim sent Bones cues to the monitor on the captain’s chair, but Bones couldn’t exactly be looking down constantly without letting on that something was up, and after a few minutes of tense discussion Bones started to find his footing. After it became clear that Bones was going to hold his own here with or without Jim’s help, Jim reclined on the chair he was sitting on and just watched Bones work. He was probably staring at his best friend - in  _ his _ body nonetheless - like some sort of lovestruck idiot, but Jim was amazed at how fast the other man was picking this up. He didn’t for a second let the Klingon commander intimidate them, and after a tense and nerve wracking conversation, they eventually came to an agreement that both the Enterprise and the Klingon vessel leave this space immediately, with the promise that in exchange the Klingon vessel would be allowed to purchase limited supplies at a nearby starbase. It was the ideal situation, and even though the conversation that had gotten them to it had been a bit unorthodox, Jim doubted he could’ve done much better himself. He was so filled with pride and love for Bones that when he looked at him he didn’t even get that weird feeling of looking at his own body because the only coherent thought he was capable of was “damn, Bones is  _ incredible _ .”

“I need a drink,” Bones groaned, sinking deep into the captain’s chair in typical Bones-like terrible posture. He received compliments from everyone on the bridge at the time, even Spock, but Jim held his tongue. He was worried that if he said something right then then he would accidentally end up doing something stupid like professing his undying love for his best friend in the middle of the bridge immediately post crisis situation. Never one who was comfortable sitting in praise, Bones brushed it all off in his typical gruff manner, stood up, and declared,

“I am never doing that again. I’ll be in medbay.”

Jim followed Bones into the turbolift without really thinking about it, and then slapped the stop button after thinking even less. 

“Holy shit. Holy shit, Bones, you’re a genius. I mean, I knew that, but seriously. Oh my God. That was incredible. I love you so much, oh my God,” Jim rambled excitedly and wait, shit, had he said that last part out loud? Based on the expression on Bones’ face, one eyebrow raised which Jim didn’t even know his face could  _ do _ , he must have. “Uhhhh,” Jim started, but couldn’t figure out how to end. He knew what he should be doing was clarifying that he meant that platonically, but his mouth wouldn’t form the words.

“Jim,” Bones said, somehow taking forever to say the single syllable. And fuck it, if Jim was going to fuck this up he was going to go down in a blaze of glory. He leaned in, closed his eyes so he wouldn’t have to see his own damn face that close up, and pressed his lips to Bones’. Bones was kissing him back, and it should have been great. On some level it was. But on another level Jim couldn’t stop thinking about the fact that he was kissing his own lips, and there was something unnerving about that. He pulled away after not nearly enough time, kept his eyes closed, and before he was able to say anything he heard Bones mumble “finally” and Jim just about came undone in that turbolift. But for some reason, his brain supplied his mouth with,

“That was weird.”

He finally opened his eyes and dammit Bones was pissed. Jim’s bright blue eyes showed the emotion in a different way than Bones’ hazel usually did, but Jim recognized it all the same. Shit, Bones thought he had meant the kiss itself was weird, and not just the fact that they were still each other.

“I don’t mean...don’t get me wrong, that was good, but...ya know…” Jim stammered, “I’m...ya know? And you’re…”   


“Jesus Christ,” Bones cut him off, “How the hell were you such a Casanova back in the Academy? You have an embarrassing lack of game.”

“Shut up. You said finally. I heard that,” Jim pointed out. They were not getting off track here.

“You told me you loved me, kissed me, and then declared that it was weird. For clarification, were you saying that kissing me was weird or that kissing me when I’m in your body was weird?”

“The latter. Definitely the latter. But...finally?”

Bones sighed, ran a hand through his hair, and leaned against the wall of the turbolift, “I’ve been in love with you, well, since the Academy probably. I didn’t want to push and spook you, I figured you’d let me know if you wanted it too. And you want it?”

“I really, really fucking want it,” Jim confirmed, “But…”   


“We should hold off on the physical until we’re ourselves,” Bones finished because they were always on the same page and that was  _ everything _ to Jim. “It was a bit of an odd sensation for me too. But...we’re going to do this?”

“We’re going to do this,” Jim nodded and he sort of felt like crying, which would have been really embarrassing even though it was Bones and if Jim was going to shed happy tears in front of anyone it could only be him. Instead, though, he pulled Bones into his arms and they hugged, taking a moment to be close in a way that was slightly less odd than kissing essentially themselves.

“I love you, kid,” Bones mumbled into Jim’s neck and Jim slapped the go button in the lift but not before he sighed in contentment and said,

“I love you too, Bones.”

On day 8, Uhura somehow managed to figure out that the captain and the doctor were dating now. Finally, as she said. And then the whole crew found out, of course. On day 9, Spock got Bones back for the whole slime thing by baiting him into an argument that was carefully designed to get him as worked up and emotional as possible. On day 10, Bones stayed overnight in Jim’s quarters and even though they still maintained that they wanted to save the physical until they were in their own bodies, they fell asleep holding each other on Jim’s bed. Because it turns out that, despite the added weirdness of still not being in the right bodies, being with Bones like this was just like how being with Bones as friends was like. Easy as breathing. On day 11, it finally ended.

Jim kept his eyes closed when he first woke up, savoring the feeling of Bones’ arms slung over his body lazily. They had separated a bit at some point during the night, but there were still several points of contact between them. It was good, great even, and Jim was afraid to open his eyes and disturb the peace. He wasn’t ready to see his own bright blue eyes looking at him and, well, he wasn’t convinced that Bones being a grumpy son of a bitch in the mornings was going to change now that they were together.

Bones was stirring next to him, if the rhythm of his breathing was anything to go off.

“Mornin’, darlin,” Bones mumbled, pressing his face into Jim’s neck and oh, this was somehow even better than he had hoped it would be. But then Bones sat bolt upright in bed and exhaled deeply, “Oh, thank fuck.”

Finally, Jim opened his eyes and, to his delight, looked at Bones. Not Bones in Jim’s body, but  _ Bones. _ Hazel eyes, broad shoulders, dark hair, and a soft smile that was, when it was genuine like this, the most gorgeous thing within all of Federation space and probably without as well. His Bones. Jim propped himself up on his elbows, considering going to the mirror in the bathroom but instead just asking Bones,

“Am I…”   


“100% back to normal. And gorgeous as ever.”

Jim flushed at the compliment and lifted an arm to wrap it on around Bones but he wasn’t as balanced as he apparently thought he was because his whole body just ended up hitting the bed instead. Bones laughed, a happy, joyous sound as he reached out a hand to ruffle Jim’s hair and snort,

“Dumbass.”

“I’m your dumbass,” Jim said proudly and Bones rolled his eyes but couldn’t keep the smile off his face as he laid back down next to him.

“Always have been, always will be.”

Jim kissed Bones softly on the lips, and then once more on the corner of his mouth. Bones’ mouth. Luck wasn’t always on his side, but Jim sent up a silent prayer to any deity he’d ever heard of, as well as the universe in general, grateful that both him and Bones had the day off that day. They wouldn’t be leaving Jim’s bed for a while.


End file.
